Because it takes alot more to sustain someones life than filling out job applications and all the training in the world isn’t going to change the fact we currently have far more seeking employment than we do available jobs.
ReligiousGhoul on
The immediate cop-out with this is usually about pensions but he’s completely right.
We’ve got an exploding benefits bill for young people out of work that needs to be addressed.
Chronospherics on
Well yeah, obviously. Because benefits covers everyone unemployed and needs to provide enough for them to live.
What point is being made here? It might as well be ‘government spends 25 times more on benefits than potholes’.
The unemployed are still going to need the benefit money and wider economic factors (like the use of AI) have cut the jobs for young people. The government can’t simply make jobs to fix that, at least, not at the scale required.
If anything we should be looking at taxing automation and AI, to pay for benefits universally (UBI). Not floating the idea of reducing benefits to pay for artificial job creation.
DeviousFeline on
With all due respect to Alan Milburn there are so many NEET young people because the state has catastrophically failed at delivering an economy that can still ladder the young into work.
Also those that are older in gen Z and DO have jobs invariably are being paid at the same entry rate as 20 years ago!
If you’re a IT worker for instance a junior sysadmin for example has to fight for 40k (Recently had an interview where I was told they’d struggle to go over 40k lmao) it’s barely budged for decades!
My personal peeve is working for a boomer boss who tries to lowball employees, not because the work is easy but because they haven’t caught up with what’s decent wages and then whining about how they can’t get any decent talent through the door.
Disillusioned_Pleb01 on
And cut pensions so the old people hold on to their living wage for longer
mattyb_uk on
Not sure why that government arent intervening to actually bring the costs of living DOWN.
Energy, food, council tax, housing. All inflationary.
We need to deflate these as paying people more isn’t going to work either.
Javina33 on
Labour have introduced several incentives and new training programmes, which is more than you can say for previous governments. The rot started due to Covid it seems. Number of NEETs has increased between 2021-2024.
Boomers looted the property market, now looting the welfare system with the triple lock. There’ll be nothing left of the country by the time they finally die off
pgboo on
Universal credit that tops up most people’s low incomes is about 20% of that.
Disability is about 24% of that
And the state pension is about 42% of that.
So what exactly can be done to make things better?
The only logical thing is to increase wages so people arent dependent on UC at least and that could save about 10%.
Theres not much else you can skim off benefits and it definitely wouldn’t make a bit of difference to the countries financial problems.
But you lot will still lap ot up and fight amongst yourselves blaming the poor for the mess we are in as usual.
amazonwarrior9999 on
Invest in services. Nucleur power plants manufacture, water services,
* **Sovereign SMR Advanced Manufacturing:** Mass-manufacture and run **23 standardized Small Modular Nuclear Reactors** directly on assembly lines using 100% upfront state cash, eliminating private interest to deliver power at pure generation cost.
* **A Municipal Social Housing Trust:** Build millions of state-funded, zero-debt modular homes on publicly owned land, decoupling shelter costs from speculative markets to drop housing outlays to baseline structural maintenance.
* **Automated Public Transit and Water Grids:** Fully nationalize, automate, and electrify the physical rail, bus, and water infrastructure, running them cleanly as zero-profit, state-subsidized logistical utilities to maximize economic velocity.
get the costs to the smallest possible and take the load off. We don’t need to be in a subscription model forever. Even our money systems and energy systems are subscriptions where we never own anything and are forever paying out more and more for diteriating services.
initiali5ed on
Cut benefits and crime goes up, raise taxes and tax evasion goes up, increase borrowing and spending and corruption increases.
Which kind of criminals does the ruling class want to produce?
JackStrawWitchita on
These people are under the false impression that jobs are available. The focus is always on training and / or motivating people to take jobs without the foggiest notion that those jobs don’t actually exist.
Continuing to hand out training and qualifications for jobs that don’t exist is a complete waste of time and money. It’s also soul-destroying for those seeking work. But the government just thinks ‘lets pay for even more training!’ completely tone-deaf to the reality that jobs don’t exist.
There’s a whole industry of training people for jobs that don’t exist and it’s entirely funded by clueless out-of-touch government.
If that ‘training money’ was instead used for real hands-on work, perhaps building affordable housing, then we’d at least have something to show for the money spent, rather than thousands of jobless people with CVs filled with training they’ll never use and nobody wants.
KingofPro on
When you have open borders with people willing to work entry level jobs for lower wages (and companies willing to hire them) than citizens it alienates young people the most. When you can live better on benefits than working a job, why would you work?
jacknpoppy on
A few years ago, I still remember the (social media) glee of the older generations, booking their holidays abroad, after being first in line for the COVID jabs.
Taking holidays, while we as a nation, made teenagers and young adults miss school, along with important and vital socialising experience, with one another.
Not much gratitude, in the following years, from the older generation, for their children and grandchildren making a large social sacrifice for them
FranklinJJunior on
Ever rising minimum wage and immigration have destroyed entry level jobs for the young.
Say10sadvocate on
How much of those “benefits” is going to employed but underpaid people?
FlaviousTiberius on
It’s a lot of money that could be spent on public sector jobs to make those sectors better. But then the Dailymail and Telegraph throw a fit and the crabs in a bucket get mad about other people having jobs so it seems they’d rather those people just sitting on benefits doing nothing instead hence why we get public sector jobs cuts.
Ok-Store-9297 on
Yes fine, there is no smoke without fire. But you had better be fixing the asset wealth inequality that looks insurmountable to these younger generations. While the boomers have their houses going up in value consecutively for years and years, the rewards become diminishing for those younger, and they live a life whereby wealth is increasingly extracted from them. No wonder they give up. You can have your welfare reforms if you do something about making work actually rewarding for people, which also means an industrial strategy where good-paying jobs are widely available.
_a_m_s_m on
Saying just “benefits” doesn’t do it justice, I’d presume that figure would include pensions as well?
HobNob_Pack on
People in these threads are always so close to hitting the mark.
‘Raaarr we have not enough jobs to get young people into’
‘Might be because theres around 10 million immigrants who also take jobs’
‘Noooo nooo thats racist we need to somehow fit more jobs on this tiny island’
Kwinza on
Well… Yeah that makes sense, benefits effect everyone.
Pensions are classed as benefits. PIP is benefits. The blue badge is benefits. UC is benefits.
Obviously that cost would be higher than the spend on jobs for 18-25 year olds.
The thing is, I agree we should do more to help young people get into meaningful employment, but this comparison is gibberish.
FunCamel8855 on
Milburn’s obviously trying to frame this as a spending priority issue, but the real scandal is that young people are being offered the same wages as two decades ago while costs have gone through the roof. You can’t just slash benefits and magically create decent jobs when the economy is structured to keep entry-level pay stagnant and automation is eating up the roles that used to provide a ladder. Honestly, taxing automation and putting that into proper support, whether UBI or actually well-funded training schemes, makes way more sense than blaming the kids for the state’s failure to adapt.
Worried-Hawk-2751 on
Its a basic income when no jobs are available. Also peoples mindset on work is changing, they dont want to be a wage slave there whole life and i don’t blame them the UK is a joke of a country with failing infrastructure.
Exasperant on
Clearly this government, and its various shady cohorts, have something coming that the populace needs to be conditioned into wanting.
TheLightStalker on
Re-nationalise water, energy and steel etc. Work with national agencies to upgrade the grid and run the whole country on renewables and nuclear. Clean up the 90% of polluted rivers, build new reservoirs and flood defenses according to the 2036 flood map. Convert brownfield sites into new homes. Link HS2 to two new tracks that spans the entire country and complete it in a timeframe similar to China. All whilst paying a living wage to everyone involved.
If that doesn’t get the unemployment down then I’ve got plenty more that needs doing.
RyeZuul on
Labour is imo unwilling to really reassess the role of work and companies and the state because it’s stuck in 2006 neoliberal mode. It needs a more solid notion of how to force businesses to be more socially participatory and reinvestment driven rather than financialisation driven.
We need to protect our futurist businesses from capitalist predation and quarterly returns and get them to reinvest in this country, engineering routes to new jobs via universities and schools. We have high levels of technical and research knowledge and we have good logistics. We can use it to put net benefit if we have the ambition and can learn to disentangle a load of private wealth from decision making.
26 Comments
Because it takes alot more to sustain someones life than filling out job applications and all the training in the world isn’t going to change the fact we currently have far more seeking employment than we do available jobs.
The immediate cop-out with this is usually about pensions but he’s completely right.
We’ve got an exploding benefits bill for young people out of work that needs to be addressed.
Well yeah, obviously. Because benefits covers everyone unemployed and needs to provide enough for them to live.
What point is being made here? It might as well be ‘government spends 25 times more on benefits than potholes’.
The unemployed are still going to need the benefit money and wider economic factors (like the use of AI) have cut the jobs for young people. The government can’t simply make jobs to fix that, at least, not at the scale required.
If anything we should be looking at taxing automation and AI, to pay for benefits universally (UBI). Not floating the idea of reducing benefits to pay for artificial job creation.
With all due respect to Alan Milburn there are so many NEET young people because the state has catastrophically failed at delivering an economy that can still ladder the young into work.
Also those that are older in gen Z and DO have jobs invariably are being paid at the same entry rate as 20 years ago!
If you’re a IT worker for instance a junior sysadmin for example has to fight for 40k (Recently had an interview where I was told they’d struggle to go over 40k lmao) it’s barely budged for decades!
My personal peeve is working for a boomer boss who tries to lowball employees, not because the work is easy but because they haven’t caught up with what’s decent wages and then whining about how they can’t get any decent talent through the door.
And cut pensions so the old people hold on to their living wage for longer
Not sure why that government arent intervening to actually bring the costs of living DOWN.
Energy, food, council tax, housing. All inflationary.
We need to deflate these as paying people more isn’t going to work either.
Labour have introduced several incentives and new training programmes, which is more than you can say for previous governments. The rot started due to Covid it seems. Number of NEETs has increased between 2021-2024.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/major-employment-drive-to-help-unlock-200000-new-jobs-and-apprenticeships-for-next-generation
Boomers looted the property market, now looting the welfare system with the triple lock. There’ll be nothing left of the country by the time they finally die off
Universal credit that tops up most people’s low incomes is about 20% of that.
Disability is about 24% of that
And the state pension is about 42% of that.
So what exactly can be done to make things better?
The only logical thing is to increase wages so people arent dependent on UC at least and that could save about 10%.
Theres not much else you can skim off benefits and it definitely wouldn’t make a bit of difference to the countries financial problems.
But you lot will still lap ot up and fight amongst yourselves blaming the poor for the mess we are in as usual.
Invest in services. Nucleur power plants manufacture, water services,
* **Sovereign SMR Advanced Manufacturing:** Mass-manufacture and run **23 standardized Small Modular Nuclear Reactors** directly on assembly lines using 100% upfront state cash, eliminating private interest to deliver power at pure generation cost.
* **A Municipal Social Housing Trust:** Build millions of state-funded, zero-debt modular homes on publicly owned land, decoupling shelter costs from speculative markets to drop housing outlays to baseline structural maintenance.
* **Automated Public Transit and Water Grids:** Fully nationalize, automate, and electrify the physical rail, bus, and water infrastructure, running them cleanly as zero-profit, state-subsidized logistical utilities to maximize economic velocity.
get the costs to the smallest possible and take the load off. We don’t need to be in a subscription model forever. Even our money systems and energy systems are subscriptions where we never own anything and are forever paying out more and more for diteriating services.
Cut benefits and crime goes up, raise taxes and tax evasion goes up, increase borrowing and spending and corruption increases.
Which kind of criminals does the ruling class want to produce?
These people are under the false impression that jobs are available. The focus is always on training and / or motivating people to take jobs without the foggiest notion that those jobs don’t actually exist.
Continuing to hand out training and qualifications for jobs that don’t exist is a complete waste of time and money. It’s also soul-destroying for those seeking work. But the government just thinks ‘lets pay for even more training!’ completely tone-deaf to the reality that jobs don’t exist.
There’s a whole industry of training people for jobs that don’t exist and it’s entirely funded by clueless out-of-touch government.
If that ‘training money’ was instead used for real hands-on work, perhaps building affordable housing, then we’d at least have something to show for the money spent, rather than thousands of jobless people with CVs filled with training they’ll never use and nobody wants.
When you have open borders with people willing to work entry level jobs for lower wages (and companies willing to hire them) than citizens it alienates young people the most. When you can live better on benefits than working a job, why would you work?
A few years ago, I still remember the (social media) glee of the older generations, booking their holidays abroad, after being first in line for the COVID jabs.
Taking holidays, while we as a nation, made teenagers and young adults miss school, along with important and vital socialising experience, with one another.
Not much gratitude, in the following years, from the older generation, for their children and grandchildren making a large social sacrifice for them
Ever rising minimum wage and immigration have destroyed entry level jobs for the young.
How much of those “benefits” is going to employed but underpaid people?
It’s a lot of money that could be spent on public sector jobs to make those sectors better. But then the Dailymail and Telegraph throw a fit and the crabs in a bucket get mad about other people having jobs so it seems they’d rather those people just sitting on benefits doing nothing instead hence why we get public sector jobs cuts.
Yes fine, there is no smoke without fire. But you had better be fixing the asset wealth inequality that looks insurmountable to these younger generations. While the boomers have their houses going up in value consecutively for years and years, the rewards become diminishing for those younger, and they live a life whereby wealth is increasingly extracted from them. No wonder they give up. You can have your welfare reforms if you do something about making work actually rewarding for people, which also means an industrial strategy where good-paying jobs are widely available.
Saying just “benefits” doesn’t do it justice, I’d presume that figure would include pensions as well?
People in these threads are always so close to hitting the mark.
‘Raaarr we have not enough jobs to get young people into’
‘Might be because theres around 10 million immigrants who also take jobs’
‘Noooo nooo thats racist we need to somehow fit more jobs on this tiny island’
Well… Yeah that makes sense, benefits effect everyone.
Pensions are classed as benefits. PIP is benefits. The blue badge is benefits. UC is benefits.
Obviously that cost would be higher than the spend on jobs for 18-25 year olds.
The thing is, I agree we should do more to help young people get into meaningful employment, but this comparison is gibberish.
Milburn’s obviously trying to frame this as a spending priority issue, but the real scandal is that young people are being offered the same wages as two decades ago while costs have gone through the roof. You can’t just slash benefits and magically create decent jobs when the economy is structured to keep entry-level pay stagnant and automation is eating up the roles that used to provide a ladder. Honestly, taxing automation and putting that into proper support, whether UBI or actually well-funded training schemes, makes way more sense than blaming the kids for the state’s failure to adapt.
Its a basic income when no jobs are available. Also peoples mindset on work is changing, they dont want to be a wage slave there whole life and i don’t blame them the UK is a joke of a country with failing infrastructure.
Clearly this government, and its various shady cohorts, have something coming that the populace needs to be conditioned into wanting.
Re-nationalise water, energy and steel etc. Work with national agencies to upgrade the grid and run the whole country on renewables and nuclear. Clean up the 90% of polluted rivers, build new reservoirs and flood defenses according to the 2036 flood map. Convert brownfield sites into new homes. Link HS2 to two new tracks that spans the entire country and complete it in a timeframe similar to China. All whilst paying a living wage to everyone involved.
If that doesn’t get the unemployment down then I’ve got plenty more that needs doing.
Labour is imo unwilling to really reassess the role of work and companies and the state because it’s stuck in 2006 neoliberal mode. It needs a more solid notion of how to force businesses to be more socially participatory and reinvestment driven rather than financialisation driven.
We need to protect our futurist businesses from capitalist predation and quarterly returns and get them to reinvest in this country, engineering routes to new jobs via universities and schools. We have high levels of technical and research knowledge and we have good logistics. We can use it to put net benefit if we have the ambition and can learn to disentangle a load of private wealth from decision making.